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Friday, June 26, 2015

Hello friends!! Popping with a card I made using the 4th sketch for the June Viva La Verve challenge and the current color palette from ColourQ. I will also be posting this to the current Word Art Wednesday challenge and the current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of anything goes. I'm trying to use more of my huge stash of 6x6 paper pads and so I hunted around and found the My Mind's Eye Moments pad that contained pretty much all the colors in the ColourQ palette. I did another very literal interpretation of this VLV sketch. Sometimes I like to take a bit of license with a sketch, but this sketch was one I just felt like playing it safe with. I used the Verve set Strong Anchor and the company die set. The anchor was stamped using Stampin Up! Soft Sky and the sentiment was stamped using Stampin Up! Marina Mist. The pale blue cardstock is Simon Says Stamp Sea Glass the closest cardstock color I had to Soft Sky. We continue to have nice sunny weather so I was able to take my photo outside. I did have to act quick, though because I has gotten rather windy! I have never played along with The Challenge and since the theme this time is nautical I thought I would post this card there, as well.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Hey friends!! Gorgeous day here in the Puget Sound area. I love all the nice sunshine, but we could seriously use some of the rain that the rest of the country has been getting! Have a card to share for this month's PTI blog hop. Nichole provided us with a photo of a sweet little pair of ballet shoe as inspiration. After much thought I went with the color palette and the idea of stripes and flowers, but I went with small flowers instead of something big and bold. One of my last crafty purchases was the Tim Holtz Tiny Tattered Floral dies. I pulled those out to create my flowers using some patterned paper from the PTI Autumn Abundance paper pad. I brought in the stripes by die cutting grey cardstock using a die from the Nostalgic Notions Make It Market Kit (I LOVE that kit!). Since the flowers and leaves in the inspiration photo were created from fabric I brought in a bit of that by die cutting my leaves (used dies from Nostalgic Notions) from green felt. I layered everything up and then added the sentiment (from Nostalgic Notions stamp set) in VersaFine Black Onyx. The piece was mounted on a grey cardstock back, a few sequins added and I was done.

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Hey friends!! Made a quick little card this morning for a couple of challenges: Freshly Made Sketches and CASology: Nautical. Originally I was going to use some images from a couple of Verve set, but as I was rummaging around in my craft drawer I came across this sweet little sailboat sticker that my friend, Greta, sent to me in a little packet of goodies. So perfect for the CASology challenge! I trimmed down a piece of Ranger watercolor paper and added a wash of light blue color using my Gansi Tambi water colors. Thank fully I had some PTI Blueberry Sky cardstock that was a pretty good match to the blue in the boat! I used a cute little scalloped border die from Top Dog to cut the Blueberry Sky for the borders on either side of the main panel. The sentiment from the Verve set Learning to Sail was stamp using VersaFine Onyx Black. To give the main panel a bit more stability and dimensional lift I used fun foam (using fun foam can also help keep the water color piece from warping). Mounted the panel on a white card base and then added the little sailboat sticker. Super simple and rather cute don't you think? I'm also adding this to the current Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge of anything goes.

Finally I have something unexpected and fun that happened today. I opened up my monthly email from Stampington & Company to see they had included one of my cards in the write up for one of their current submission calls for Stampers Sampler Take Ten!

Monday, June 22, 2015

Hey friends!! We are having some amazing weather here in the Puget Sound. So happy that our June has been so nice especially since we just hosted the US Open golf championship. I'm not especially into golf, but it was kinda fun watching the final rounds yesterday. While I watched said US Open I made a couple of cards and this is one of them. I have been trying to figure out something to make for the current Reverse Confetti Sketch for You to Try. When I saw the new Paper Players challenge (Clean and Simple Summer Treats) I finally found the right inspiration. One of last crafty purchases from Reverse Confetti included the Let's Chill stamp and die set. So I pulled that out and got to work. I went monochromatic and used a pretty aqua (Stampin Up!'s Coastal Cabana) colored ink and patterned paper. The Let's Chill dies include one to cut out rectangles in the ice cream bars allowing you to back the bar with a contrasting color. After die cutting the main part of the ice cream bar I stamped the image and then cut out the center and backed each one with a second ice cream bar cut from silver glitter paper. Love that cute little star garland (also from Reverse Confetti). Layered everything up on the white card base and I was done.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Hey friends!! Got another opportunity to make a card this weekend and so I came up with this little card for the current Essentials by Ellen pin-sights challenge, as well as Freshly Made Sketches. My last Essentials by Ellen purchase was the stamp set Hello Gorgeous and the die You Rock. I took my inspiration from the gem shaped blocks in one of the pictures and pulled some of the colors from the mood board (blue, green, light turquoise and orange), along with gold and grey. I splatted a piece of white cardstock with the blue, green, orange and light turquoise colors. The splatters appear a bit light in the photo, but look nice in person. After everything was dry I stamped the little gems in VersaFine Onyx Black ink. The diamond (or rock) was die cut from gold mirror card stock and adhered along with the "you". I matted the piece with black cardstock and them mounted it on grey. Nice and simple!

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Hey friends!! Got a little bit of time to make something. With the boys being out of school for the summer and many other things to do my crafty time is pretty limited and I'm spending most of it making design team projects. So nice to be able to make something just for fun!

This card uses the week 3 Viva La Verve June sketch and the colors from Color Throwdown. I love the simplicity of the sketch. You can keep it simple (like I did) or really jazz it up. But, for such a simple card it sure took me a long time to make. Spent a lot of it hunting around for patterned papers that were a good match for the Color Throwdown colors. Finally found one in the My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart 6x6 pad and another in a My Mind's Eye Cut & Paste 6x6 pad. I used the Verve stamp set Learning to Sail for the sentiment panel. The panels were die cut using A Jillian Vance Design Polka Dot Backdrop Rectangle dies. The ink is Stampin Up! Smoky Slate.

Monday, June 15, 2015

Hey friends!! Popping in with a little card I made late on Sunday night. The last few days have been busy with parties for my little guy, Gabriel, who turned 9 this past Sunday (June 14th). We wrapped up the weekend with dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Jimmy Macs. When we got home I decided to unwind from all the activity by make a card using the June Viva La Verve week 2 sketch. I used some lovely papers from the My Mind's Eye On Trend. I love the beautiful soft colors and touches of gold in this set of papers. I paired them up with the delicate bluebells image from the Verve set Framed Florals. The label image and sentiment are from the Verve set Small Packages. Both the frame and the bluebells were die cut with their companion dies. I used some PTI Ocean Tides ink to stamp the labels image, as well as the outline image for the bluebells. The solid portion of the bluebells was stamped using Simon Says Stamp Pale Blush Pink. I added some stitching down the side using one of the PTI stitching lines die and gold metallic thread. In order to make sure that the doily didn't shift while I was adding the stitching with the die I did tack the doily down with a little bit of adhesive. After I had finished stamping everything I decided to add some overstamping using Delicate Golden Glitz ink... love the subtle gold sparkle it added. Verve is having a release this month... can't wait to see what lovely stamps they have in store for us!! Going to post this to Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge... I think this would be a great card to send to a friend!

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Hey friends!! Popping in with a couple of fun, bright cards that I made using the Simon Says Stamp June card kit. This kit comes with some fun Doodlebug papers and stickers, as well as a super cute SSS stamp set called Happy & Smile. I used sketches from Freshly Made Sketches and Sweet Sunday Sketch for the cards so I will be posting them to those challenges. The first card is for Freshly Made Sketches.

One of the Doodlebug papers has a grouping of little notebook pages (the other side is a cute polka dot pattern). I trimmed out one to use for the oval element in the sketch. Rainbow washi tape was included in the kit and that was used for the side element. I stamped the sun from the Happy & Smile set and then added the little face (how cute is that sun??). The large scripty word "smile" was stamped in black. For some reason the word didn't stamp very well on the patterned paper so I filled in with black Wink of Stella. A yellow banner stamped with the sentiment was added. Everything was mounted on a bright yellow cardstock base (SSS cardstock from the kit).

The second card is for Sweet Sunday Sketch. This one uses the large scripty word "happy" and another sentiment that I curved to fit along the little hill I created with the MFT snow drift dies. The little stickers are from the SSS June kit, as are the patterned paper. Again, the "happy" didn't stamp really well so I added some black Wink of Stella.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Hello friends!! Popping in with a card that I made using this week's ColourQ combo and this week's Make it Monday technique: stamping with neutrals. When I saw Dawn's video I was interested in giving it a try and was excited when I saw that the ColourQ combo would be perfect for the MIM technique. When I try a MIM technique I try not to use PTI products similar to what was used by whoever is presenting the technique, but in this instance I used the same set that Dawn used.. Friendly Flowers. The contemporary look to Friendly Flowers lends itself to stamping with unusual color combos. Today I got some happy mail in the form of the newest Make It Market kit Notable Notions. After I finished die cutting and stamping all the pieces for the card and arranging how I wanted them on my cardstock panel I decided to add the large corner image from the Notable Notions stamp set to the panel before adhering all the pieces. You don't see much of it, but I think it adds that finishing touch to the card. Even though this is a color combo that I don't think I would ever put together myself, I do think that I was able to combine all of them rather well and I love how the card turned out. I am also adding this to the current Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge: for the love of plants.

One of my recent crafty purchases was the PTI Scribble Circle dies and I had been wanting to make something with them. I water colored some Ranger water color paper using light yellow and pink inks. Once the piece was dry I die cut it using the middle scribble circle. It came out of the die with all the pieces still together and I liked how it looked so I just added some washi tape to the back to make sure that nothing fell out before I got the card finished. The little bunnies were colored, allowed to dry and then die cut with the matching dies. Some paper from the PTI Beautiful Brushstrokes pad was used to compliment the pink in the scribble circle. I stamped the sentiment and then layered everything up. The finished panel was mounted on a PTI Soft Stone card base. I think this would make a lovely baby shower card or a birthday card for a little girl.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Hey friends... getting this post done before the day gets going. It is going to be another gorgeous one and I want to make sure that we get out and enjoy that sunshine!! I created this card using the first sketch for the June Viva La Verve challenge, as well as the Verve Diva Dare challenge (eat me drink me). I'm not a coffee drinker (my favorite is a tall Starbucks Chai latte with soy milk... no water), but I will be entering this into the Summer Coffee Lovers blog hop since you can also enter tea or hot cocoa related cards. Papers are from the My Mind's Eye Jubilee line and the stamp set used is Verve's One Cup. The banners were cut using a die from the Verve Flag It die set. Tried to keep things simple, but added some interest with a little paper piecing, some partial embossing and a bit of distressing.

Friday, June 5, 2015

Hey friends!! Wow... is it a beautiful day here in the Pacific Northwest and what am I doing on a day like today?? Spending it inside making a card for several challenges. This good weather is supposed to last through next week so taking one day to stay inside and craft isn't too bad... plus my boys were at school and hubby went to work early so I had a nice quiet house in which to craft (and that doesn't happen often, lol!). So... I'm playing along with Paulina's Watercolor Blog Hop, Color Throwdown (color combo), CAS(E) this Sketch (layout) and Essentials by Ellen Mix It Up challenge (use Essentials by Ellen and Altenew products. The watercoloring I did for this card is pretty darn simple because my watercoloring skill aren't that great right now. I simply stamped the poppy outline images from the Altenew set Painted Poppies using VersaFine Onyx Black ink. Painted Poppies includes "filler" images and I used the largest one for the flowers. I inked it up with red ink, spritzed on water and then stamped on the outline images. I brushed on some clear water to soften everything and pull some of the color out from the images. The sentiment from the Essentials by Ellen set Hello Gorgeous was stamped in Onyx Black ink, as well. The frame was die cut using my A Jillian Vance Design Polka Dot Rectangle Backdrop dies. In order to keep the main panel nice and flat I used a piece of fun foam cut slightly smaller than the panel. This gives the panel lift and keeps everything flat. The frame was adhered using foam tape and then a bit a Crystal Stickles was brushed on the flower centers. Mounted the panel on a black card base.

I love the Perched Reed Bird die from Memory Box and don't use it enough so I pulled it out, along with the Memory Box Small Circle Burst die. I cut the main panel from PTI's white linen cardstock and then die cut it with the Circle Burst die. The bird was also cut from the white linen cardstock. The banner was die cut from plain white cardstock since I wanted to stamp it with the sentiment (from the Precious Remembrance Shop Blossom set). After layering everything I added some white and silver sequins for a little sparkle. Just love a crisp, clean card design.